Legislators updated on state health care enrollment

Wednesday, January 29, 2014 3:05 PM

State officials believe they are reaching their target for enrollment under the federal health care overhaul, but say it may be two years before they see a complete enrollment picture, the Sioux City Journal reported.

More than 61,000 Iowans now are enrolled in the new health care coverage plans offered by the state and federal governments. The bulk of them, however, were auto-enrolled when the state replaced its IowaCare program with the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan, Iowa Medicaid Director Jennifer Vermeer told legislators Tuesday.

Another 11,161 have enrolled in private health insurance plans through the online marketplace. That total is well short of the actuarial projection of 140,000 Iowa enrollees before the end of the year, the Journal reported. The actuarial projection represents the number of Iowans "potentially eligible," Vermeer said, based on a variety of factors.

Data from the previous week showed 58,705 enrollees with 50,186 of them auto-enrolled from IowaCare. Of those, 42,000 were enrolled in the state health and wellness plan and 8,000 were enrolled in the Iowa Marketplace Choice Plan, Vermeer said.

Among the 8,518 new to Medicaid or previously not covered by IowaCare, 5,100 were enrolled in some type of Medicaid last year, while the other 3,400 were not, she said.

Data is not collected on how many enrollees did not have health coverage prior to implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act and the state health and wellness plans.

However, Vermeer said, "We're adding a lot of people to health care coverage, more than otherwise would be covered."